In July last year, trustees of Atlantic Bridge, a charity founded by defence secretary Liam Fox, agreed to cease all their current activities immediately.

The charity was founded to promote closer ties between senior Conservatives and their US allies, and was found by the Charity Commission of promoting party-political activity.

Liam Fox’s close friend Adam Werrity was the executive director and sole employee of Atlantic Bridge.

This week the trustees finally agreed to dissolve Atlantic Bridge after agreeing that it could not continue its operations in any other way.

But as Labour MP Kevan Jones says:

We need to know who funded this organisation and exactly what Liam Fox and Adam Werritty’s roles were.

This raises yet more questions about the connection between Fox and Werritty and people will expect full answers sooner rather than later. We need to be clear that the activities of the Atlantic Bridge had nothing to do with Liam Fox’s activities as secretary of state for defence.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Atlantic Bridge closely worked with a US group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). According to ALEC:

The project aims to foster positive relationships between conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, so that they may further the ideals exemplified by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

For a second, describing The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation as ‘the backers of the Tea Party’ seems a bit reductive.

Charles’ and David’s foundations have together provided millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, usually libertarian or conservative think tanks, such as Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Which is interesting – if you’re into that kind of thing – because the Bridge held a conference, when Fox was Shadow Health Secretary, at which a Pfizer representative – along with others from GlaxonSmithKline and Novartis – heard and gave speeches against regulation and on the question of whether “the current UK health care model [is] sustainable”.

They didn’t, however, have “links to the Tea Party”. (Unless we’re playing a game of degrees of separation.) Their “links” were far more clear and unpleasant than that: Kissinger, Rove, Ashcroft, Giuliani, Lehman Bros. and others. See:

Yes they do fund the tea party, and a lot of other scummy right wing astro turf groups. They also are involved with Iran,which has just come out into the open. But no surprise to see our obiedient butler trolls spinning for their corporate masters.

Would not be the least surprised if Fox has connections with the tea party. They love corporate welfare, just like his dodgy mates.

It’s not the Tea Party angle that is particularly interesting: I don’t think that the Tea Party are going to try to influence UK politics. It is the links to ALEC that are interesting. Some high-power lobbyists in the USA appear to have been been able to gain a strong foothold in the UK through Fox and Werritty and Atlantic Bridge. The agenda is beginning to look familiar: changes in voter resigstration, privatisation of public services.

From Guardian: Liam Fox, his adviser, and an irregular meeting in Dubai – 7th October. My concern – Atlantic Bridge – run from Fox’s office in Portcullis House, (ie funded by taxpayers), a charity that did no charitable work and so was closed down by the Charity Commission.

Soon after Fox founded the Atlantic Bridge charity, which was designed to promote the “special relationship” between the UK and the US, he asked Werritty to run the charity as executive director. The charity was backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) and the hedge fund millionaire Michael Hintze.

The funding of the charity, which was supported by senior Tories and patronised by Lady Thatcher, allowed Werritty and Fox to frequently travel to events in America. In one instance Fox flew back from Washington to the UK in Hintze’s private jet, the register of members’ interests shows. It has been suggested that Werritty was also present on the jet.

While in London, Werritty ran the day-to-day operations of the charity from room 341 in the MPs’ block at Portcullis House, which was provided to Fox at taxpayers’ expense while he was in opposition until last year. Staff in the building still remember Werritty, who stands taller than Fox and has a receding hairline.

Werritty worked for the Atlantic Bridge until last summer when the regulator demanded that its “current activities must cease immediately” because “the activities of the charity have not furthered any of its other charitable purposes in any way”.

….. Sunny….. why not just change the name from “Koch Foundation” in the OP.? The KF, as Tim has pointed out, is a harmless organization that funds churches and schools in Africa, but you have them pegged as the fons et origo of all extreme right-wing, climate-denying eeevil.